Fast Food workers picketing outside of Krystals on Moreland Ave (Atlanta: sales, Home Depot)

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

My first job out of college paid LESS THAN $10/hour!

I hear you.

I was going through some old junk recently and found my paycheck from my first job right after we got married: $1.25 per hour. We lived on that with our first child, and managed to pay off the OB and the hospital as well.

Of course people tell me that's now equivalent to something like $8.00 an hour.

[gerrythesnake]

For those that say they should get paid $15 lets do this. We will have two menus. One for the customers who are for it and another one for the people against it. The people that are against the raise will continue to pay normal prices and the people who want them to get a raise will pay 2x-3x the normal price.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by JPD

You'll need to support that with some hard evidence. Sometimes things that sound logical are actually wrong. Costco somehow manages to pay great wages and still turns a hefty profit. If you pay more, you get better employees who work for you for longer periods of time. This helps offset the cost of increased wages to the employer.

Also, by paying more, it puts more money in the local economy, which INCREASES the number of jobs since all that extra money being spent will result in increased demand for products and the people and places that sell them. In addition to that, if you have good employees who have worked for you for a long time and feel like they're being paid a good wage, it's going to create a situation where your customers are happier and will be more likely to continue supporting your business.

$15 is probably asking too much, but a substantial increase is long overdue and I support this strike.

Econ 101:


Minimum wage increases are usually done in very small incriminates, is usually still below equilibrium for most jobs, and it is all but impossible to get a proper control group. So even the studies you do find on it that are more than inconclusive I would not trust (Even though many of those do show a loss in employment). However a very large increase would be a great way to show the damage min wage can really do! Why are you afraid of increasing it too much if min wage can only do good? Why not increase it to $500/hour?

Edit: The wikipedia page does a good job of giving a un-biased look at the good and bad of minimum wage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage

But here's the thing: If we, as a society, think people deserve a certain amount to survive on then we should institute a basic income not force certain companies to pay it to certain people.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by gerrythesnake

For those that say they should get paid $15 lets do this. We will have two menus. One for the customers who are for it and another one for the people against it. The people that are against the raise will continue to pay normal prices and the people who want them to get a raise will pay 2x-3x the normal price.

Or maybe the people who are for it will get good food and the people who are against it will get the not-so-good food.

[midtown mile girl]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Gotta disagree with this.

My first job out of college paid LESS THAN $10/hour!

That wasn't because I couldn't find a real job and worked at Target. This was a REAL JOB at a REAL COMPANY doing REAL WORK, 40 hours a week at a major corporate headquarters with benefits. This was a COLLEGE DEGREE job.

Guess what? I wasn't rich. A dinner at a sit down restaurant like Buffalo's was considered eating out NICE. I didn't live large....BUT...I still had enough to survive and not live in a dump.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't live in Shangri-la. I lived in a highly working class area and had a roommate. It was an old townhouse built in the early 80s off I-85 in the part of unincorporated Gwinnett county often referred to as Norcross. It wasn't nice. But it was shelter, it had space, and it was relatively safe (in 4 years we were never broken into). Rent was $750, so we each paid $377.50 per month. I don't think rents in that area are significantly more than that today.

I had to fuel a car to take me to downtown Atlanta every day. In those days, we had to pay LONG DISTANCE fees to call our parents.

Sure, at the time I hated it. But it kept me grounded and humble. So even though today I wouldn't want to go back to that, I know I could. I know how to do it. And I can tell you, $13-$15/hour is NOT rock bottom. By the time I hit $15/hour, I was renting my very own 2 bedroom apartment in a nice, new, modern building in a place where the rents are probably pretty close to where they were back then.

I'm all for a living wage. But let me ask you....if as a college graduate with a professional job, I was making under $10/hour and still managing to survive, why in the world does someone with no education or skills working in a fast food restaurant deserve to earn more?

I'm not against a $10/hour minimum wage, but $15? That's crazy. The food at Krystal will get so expensive you'll be able to eat at Outback or Longhorn for the same price, because guess what....servers never get pay bumps.

When did you graduate? When I graduated in 1990 jobs were scarce. I cobbled together a job at Rich's with temping until I got my 1st "real" job at Suntrust as a bank teller at 13,700 a year. My rent was about 500 for a decent place (now rents for about 900) in Doraville. Back then eating at Waffle House was a treat.

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Econ 101:


Minimum wage increases are usually done in very small incriminates, is usually still below equilibrium for most jobs, and it is all but impossible to get a proper control group. So even the studies you do find on it that are more than inconclusive I would not trust (Even though many of those do show a loss in employment). However a very large increase would be a great way to show the damage min wage can really do! Why are you afraid of increasing it too much if min wage can only do good? Why not increase it to $500/hour?

Edit: The wikipedia page does a good job of giving a un-biased look at the good and bad of minimum wage: Minimum wage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But here's the thing: If we, as a society, think people deserve a certain amount to survive on then we should institute a basic income not force certain companies to pay it to certain people.

Exactly. You learn this stuff in a elementary college economic course. There's a limit for everything and everything will always go back to an equilibrium. If min. wage increases, products and service will increase along with it thus everything is brought back to a near equilibrium. That 15 dollars those people are getting will be worth the same as it did when they were only getting 7 dollars an hour because everything costs more. Then they'd ask for 20 dollars an hour. Not only that, but for the people who actually had salaries, they now have less money in their pockets thus LESS SPENDING all around and the economy goes into recession again.

You simply cannot just increase the min. wage by 2x the amount in an instant. That's dangerous for the economy and that will ensure that will ensure this economy takes a massive hit.

[DaBurgh]

They do know that they're not forced to work there correct

[Cameron H]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Higher minimum wage results in higher unemployment and higher prices.

Institute a basic income and get rid of all the government programs. That will force employers to pay fair prices to attract workers to unappealing jobs since workers are not forced to take them to qualify for other assistance needed just to survive.

Originally Posted by jsvh

Econ 101:
But here's the thing: If we, as a society, think people deserve a certain amount to survive on then we should institute a basic income not force certain companies to pay it to certain people.

After sparring with you repeatedly on the Braves stadium, I'm pleased to find a point of agreement. The minimum wage is just a hidden tax on low-wage employers, mainly in the service industry. On the other hand, whether because of globalization, automation, etc., the labor market obviously "clears" at a level that leaves many Americans impoverished, and many more with stagnant incomes. And while the focus right now is on unskilled labor, these forces aren't going away and they will increasingly come for most of us. We're transitioning from an economy that originally favored land and labor, then labor and capital, and now capital and technology. If you want to continue to have a market economy, you're going to have to figure out "what to do with" excess labor. Give 'em money and eliminate food stamps, welfare, unemployment, Section 8, etc. Let them do what they will with the money. Some will buy drugs. Some will make personal sacrifices to start a business or go to college. Conservatives get a more limited-government welfare state and liberals get the elimination of poverty and the empowerment of the underprivileged.

So the strikers are right to complain, but wrong about the best solution to the problem.

[0nyxStation]

Originally Posted by DaBurgh

They do know that they're not forced to work there correct

I was thinking along these lines. The country is big enough where you can work at different places. I don't hate fast food employees or anyone else that works the so called poormans job. People and their egos man. My dad would tell me about this kinda crap when I was younger, I used to be like wth he talking about? My take on this thread is not that the fast food guys are requesting more money, its the fact people are telling them "shut up your life is garbage Now make my sandwich".

[0nyxStation]

Originally Posted by SAAN

Lets start a rally for a $30hr Corporate minimum wage, since fast food workers want $15hr for having no skills.

Sign me up for that protest lol.